Pollet

The City Commission Tuesday night appointed former Orange-Osceola State Attorney Robert Eagan to investigate ethics charges against Mayor John Pollet, who was absent from the meeting on a free trip to Seattle.''It's my recommendation that the person who conducts this investigation be independent of Kissimmee and Osceola County, so I recommend Mr. Robert Eagan of Orlando,'' City Attorney Don Smallwood said.Eagan, 69, was Osceola-Orange state attorney for 20 years until he retired to private practice in 1989.

ON THIS DAY in 1788, the Congress of the Confederation authorized the first national election, and declared New York City the temporary national capital. In 1803, Commodore John Barry, considered by many the father of the American Navy, died in Philadelphia. In 1943, Chiang Kai-shek became president of China. In 1948, Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine was elected to the Senate, becoming the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress. In 1971, a four-day inmates' rebellion at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York ended as police and guards stormed the prison; the ordeal and final assault claimed 43 lives.

Mayor John Pollet will ask Circuit Judge Frank Kaney next week to hold the City Commission in contempt of court for suspending him from office, Pollet's attorney said Friday.''All they've done is named their impeachment proceeding something else - they call it suspension now,'' said Robert Buonauro, the Orlando attorney representing Pollet.The commission moved to impeach Pollet in July, arguing that he violated Kissimmee's gifts law when he took Orlando Magic playoff tickets from companies that had pending business with the city.

Anyone who caught a glimpse recently of some different-colored St. Cloud police cars was not seeing things. The color really has changed from white to black on three of the department's 10 patrol cars.The cars' new black motif with red and blue stripes will be phased in on the rest of the cars over the next three years - depending upon the reception, officials said.Now, it isn't a problem. The new black rides are something that would appeal to both Dale Earnhardt AND Darth Vader.Smith takes a gambleA group of Osceola County officials boarded a bus at midweek for a two-day tour of courthouses in Central and East Florida.

Former City Commissioner Frank Attkisson filed papers Tuesday to begin a campaign to recall suspended Mayor John Pollet.''He said this is the only way he could be suspended from office,'' Attkisson said. ''If the citizens are as embarrassed as I am, this is the way we've got to get rid of him.''Attkisson, who has said he plans to run for mayor in 1996, said he and about a dozen other volunteers will begin gathering signatures Saturday.Kissimmee's recall process is a complicated one that includes gathering 1,121 signatures of active voters within 30 days, election officials have said.

Mayor John Pollet on Tuesday night pleaded not guilty to charges of accepting illegal gifts, and the special prosecutor investigating Pollet promised to finish his work rapidly.''I would think that it would be in the best interest of the city that it would be wrapped up quickly,'' said Robert Eagan, the attorney the City Commission hired to prosecute Pollet in the impeachment proceedings.Pollet was arraigned on charges that he accepted tickets to Orlando Magic games in violation of city law.Eagan, who himself was cleared of bribery charges after a year of scrutiny in 1985, said he is especially sensitive to the need to quickly conclude such an investigation.

Mayor John Pollet was suspended without pay by a unanimous vote of the City Commission on Thursday night after he attempted to adjourn the meeting and stormed out of City Hall.''It is my intention to file lawsuits against each commissioner individually for depriving me of the position of mayor the people elected me to,'' Pollet said before leaving.The commission voted to hold Thursday night's special meeting in response to a deal reported by the state attorney's investigator.Pollet, a certified public accountant, played free golf at a city course for doing the books at the pro shop, according to a report released by the state attorney's office.

The state attorney's office was scheduled to interview witnesses today in a state investigation of Mayor John Pollet, an investigator said.But he said he is not optimistic that Pollet can be prosecuted for accepting gifts from companies doing business with the city.The state attorney's office is looking only at possible criminal violations of state law, not violations of the ethics law, said Wendell Perdue, chief investigator for State Attorney Lawson Lamar.The state ethics law prohibits public officials from accepting any gift worth more than $100.

Two years before the current controversy, Mayor John Pollet asked a company doing business with the city for Orlando Magic tickets, according to sworn testimony released this week.''He asked me if we had tickets available,'' said George Geletko, a marketing manager for Waste Management. ''I said, 'Yes, we do.' ''Pollet has conceded he took Orlando Magic tickets this year from two other companies doing business with the city, but has said he never solicited tickets, only accepted them when offered.

AFTER READING your article about Kissimmee Mayor John Pollet, this is all I have to say:I give thanks to America that I have been able to live here all my 66 years. I always believed that anyone wanting to plant roots here should like to speak English as we Americans do. I resent being forced to see signs in any other language than what we have spoken here for centuries.I feel that the mayor was correct in stating what he said, and I hope that we never see signs or any written information in a language other than what we have used in our country.

The governor has publicly reprimanded ousted Kissimmee Mayor John Pollet and ordered him to pay a $2,000 fine for illegally soliciting sporting event tickets from companies doing business with the city.In an executive order issued last week, Gov. Lawton Chiles accepted a recommendation by the state Commission on Ethics to fine Pollet. The nine-member commission in January said Pollet should pay $1,000 for each of two charges against him.In his order, Chiles found that Pollet, 53, violated Florida statutes by soliciting tickets to an Orlando Magic basketball game from Waste Management of Orlando and golf tournament passes from Camp, Dresser & McKee, an environmental engineering firm.

Ousted Kissimmee Mayor John Pollet should pay a $2,000 fine for soliciting basketball and golf tickets from companies doing business with the city, the state Commission on Ethics has decided.A hearing officer in November found Pollet guilty of asking for the tickets and recommended a fine of $1,000 on each of two charges.The nine-member commission agreed and announced this week that it will send its recommendation to Gov. Lawton Chiles. He has the power to publicly censure and reprimand Pollet and impose the fine.

It was a year of consequences, paybacks and repercussions.Politicians and longtime officials discovered the dance was over and the piper had presented his bill. Citizens found their votes did have consequences. Criminals heard their verdicts.Osceola County breathed a sigh of relief in September, when 19-year-old Jeremy Skocz was convicted of the brutal rape and murder of his 4-year-old next-door neighbor. The conviction and recommendation for the death penalty seemed overdue to many, coming almost a year after Skocz's arrest on a cold November morning in 1995.

Dear Santa,In case you've lost track of who has been naughty and who has been nice this year, I thought I'd give you some hints on what you should have put under a few Christmas trees this morning.- Osceola Daily Bread - A place to call its own. In search of a permanent home for months, the ministry was endangered earlier this year because it has yet to find one. The county's only soup kitchen got an extension when Kissimmee's First Presbyterian Church allowed it to continue operating on church property until a permanent site is found.

Former Mayor John Pollet is guilty on two charges of soliciting sporting event tickets from companies doing business with the city, a hearing officer for the Florida Commission on Ethics ruled.In a recommendation released this week, Hearing Officer Carolyn Holifield recommended Pollet be fined $1,000 per charge.''Pollet's explanations for why he asked about the tickets are self-serving and neither reasonable nor credible,'' Holifield wrote in conclusion. ''Therefore, the commission has proven that Pollet solicited gifts from lobbyists.

Suspended Mayor John Pollet has filed a motion for a rehearing in his impeachment case before the Fifth District Court of Appeal.Earlier this month, the court ruled against Pollet, who was claiming that the City Commission's attempt to impeach him was unconstitutional.Pollet, whose term expires in November, has been suspended from the City Commission pending an impeachment trial on charges of accepting illegal gifts from firms doing business with the city.

LET THE punishment fit the crime.Unless there is more to the ''problem'' than we are privileged to learn, the intended stripping of office from Kissimmee Mayor John Pollet does not fit his alleged accepting ''the gifts'' from those doing business with the city.It may have been a case of poor judgment on Mr. Pollet's part, particularly because he symbolically represents the city of Kissimmee as well as being leader of the City Commission.Perhaps if Mr. Pollet can live with it, assuming that there is a serious breach of ethics, and we emphasize ''serious,'' he could at least retain his commission seat without continuing in his role as mayor.

Call it an illegal gift, a conflict of interest, a case of personal gain from a public project. Whatever you name it, questions of public ethics dominated the year in Osceola County.But out of arrogance or ignorance - or perhaps a touching faith that the voters could see the difference between the truly unethical and the guilty by association - local officeholders ignored the issue this election season.And most of them spent this week trying to figure out what went wrong.It was no mystery to Kissimmee Mayor-elect Frank Attkisson.

Former City Commission member Frank Attkisson pulled out a win in a three-way horse race for mayor.Attkisson, a self-employed salesman, won with 37 percent of the vote, followed by former Mayor George Gant at 32 percent and Commissioner Ken Maher at 31 percent.''I'm elated,'' Attkisson said. ''My wife just pushed me. I took a poll seven weeks ago and I only had 12 percent of the vote.''The mayor's office was vacated earlier this year when John Pollet was impeached on charges he violated Kissimmee law against taking gifts from firms doing business with the city.